Books by Guy Lyon Playfair

When The Flying Cow was first published in 1975, it revealed a world of psychic wonders in Brazil hitherto barely explored by outsiders. Author Guy Lyon Playfair had spent two years as a member of the Brazilian Institute for Psychobiophysical Research (IBPP), the first group of its kind to investigate and document the wide range of inexplicable phenomena - from poltergeists and psychic surgeons to trance artists and children who recall previous lives.He spent several days and nights in a poltergeist-haunted house, managing to record several inexplicable happenings on tape. He watched as a young man untrained in art dashed off a series of portraits in the styles of numerous deceased masters, some in a matter of seconds. He witnessed some of the country's unorthodox healers at work, and saw them open bodies with their bare hands, eventually finding out for himself how it feels to be on the receiving end of this most bizarre form of alternative surgery.He also looked into some of the best known cases from the past, collecting new eye-witness evidence for the mysterious abilities of such legendary figures as Arigó, the 'surgeon of the rusty knife', colourful and controversial mediums such as Carlos Mirabelli, Peixotinho and Otilia Diogo. He even obtained an account of the rarest of all psychic phenomena - materialisation - from a chief of police.The Flying Cow was followed by its sequel The Indefinite Boundary in 1976. Material from the latter has been included in this edition, making it the most comprehensive survey available of the paranormal world of Brazil.The author gave up a secure and lucrative career as freelance journalist and translator to explore that world, and in this book, fully revised and updated, he describes what he found there. Much of it is as surprising today as it was when it was first published.

Is there a 'special connection' between twins? Can they read each other's minds? Are they telepathic? These questions are often asked, but have never been convincingly answered until now.The author became interested in the subject when he was given vivid first-hand testimony of how a man whose twin brother had been shot dead had reacted several miles away at the exact time. This prompted him to embark on a thorough search of the literature and collect accounts of similar examples of apparent telepathy, some dating back to the 18th century, to question numerous twins regarding their own experiences, to compile a substantial file of case histories, and eventually to help set up properly controlled scientific experiments in which telepathy could be seen to take place on a polygraph chart, two of which have now been published in peer-reviewed journals.As he makes clear in this ground-breaking book, the first ever to explore the 'special twin connection' in detail, the answer is simple: some twins are telepathy-prone and some, probably the majority, are not. How can this be, you might wonder? Aren't all identical twins supposed to be identical in all respects? They are not. The fact is that, as Orwell might have put it, some twins are more identical than others. What seems to make the difference is exactly when division of the fertilized zygote (egg) takes place. This can take place almost immediately, or up to twelve days later. Without going into detail here, what this means is that 'late splitters' develop extremely close bonds after birth, bonds that can last a lifetime, whereas 'early splitters' become more independent, and regard their twins just like an ordinary brother or sister. Sure enough, when experiments were carried out in London and Copenhagen, on each occasion it was a late-splitting pair who showed the clearest evidence for telepathy on their polygraph charts. The often heard critical complaint that here is no repeatable experiment for any kind of psychic effect is no longer true.This new revised and updated edition contains the most comprehensive survey yet written on the history of research into twin telepathy. The author explains why experiments have generally been unsuccessful in the past, and why those that he helped design have been consistently successful, and point the way ahead for future researchers.He also explains that a better understanding of the special twin connection is of more than academic interest, especially to parents, some of whom already know that it can save lives and has already done so.Earlier editions of this book were well received by such authorities as psychologist Stanley Krippner, a former president of the Parapsychological Association, for whom it 'reads like an intriguing detective story', and Rupert Sheldrake, who has contributed a Foreword in which he states:'For many years I have been looking in vain for authoritative research on this intriguing subject. At last I have found it, in this book'.Colin Wilson, in his Introduction predicts that the book 'will obviously become a classic of psychical research.'

This is the Amazing Story of the Enfield PoltergeistOn August 31st 1977, normal life ended for Mrs Harper and her four children in their modest council house in a hitherto quiet corner of the north London suburb of Enfield.Compared to what was to come, the initial phenomena were relatively minor - knockings on the walls, and pieces of furniture moving in ways that did not seem normal.The neighbours came in and searched the house, finding all in order, though they too heard the knocking. The police were called, and were able to witness a chair sliding along the floor. The disturbances went on, getting more intense and more frightening. They were eventually witnessed by at least thirty people.They included examples of everything a poltergeist can do - overturning chairs and tables, flinging things about, whipping off bedclothes, levitating one of the girls in full view of passers-by, making her speak with the voice of an old man and defying the laws of physics by passing matter through solid matter.Much of this bewildering and often terrifying activity was captured on tape and film by Maurice Grosse of the Society for Psychical Research and his colleague Guy LyonPlayfair, who were on the case within days of its outbreak stayed on it until it finally came to an end, with a twist as unexpected and surprising as in any detective story.No other case of its kind has been so well witnessed from start to finish or so thoroughly documented. Incidents are described as they happened, without embellishment, from some six hundred pages of transcripts of live tape recordings. The story of the Enfield poltergeist is already regarded as a classic in the annals of psychical research. It has been the subject of worldwide press coverage and several radio and television documentaries.